Jonathan Frid transformed the vampire

View full sizeMPI Home VideoThe late Jonathan Frid's portrayal of Barnabas Collins opened the way for all kinds of vampire variations and interpretations.

The image of the vampire was forever changed by "Dark Shadows," a 1966-71 supernatural soap opera that aired on ABC. The man responsible for that change was Jonathan Frid, who brought heart and soul and the instincts of a Shakespearean actor to his portrayal of vampire Barnabas Collins.

Frid cut a pioneering pop-culture path in the 1960s. That path leads directly to the brooding, tormented vampires so popular today in "True Blood," "Twilight" and "The Vampire Diaries."

The path starts with the first appearance of the Barnabas Collins character 45 years ago this week. It cuts across the next three decades with Anne Rice's introspective, soul-searching vampires. And it leads through the 1990s and into the new century with David Boreanaz's Angel, a vampire, like Barnabas, with a conscience.

Frid, who died on April 13 at 87, was the man who set the vampire free. The 1960s was a decade of rebellion and liberation movements, and Frid's depiction of Barnabas was nothing less than Vampire Lib.

Before Barnabas, the vampire was a creature with a fairly limited job description. He was primarily a predator. There were hints of regret or longing in some pre-Barnabas vampire portrayals, but they were only hints. The vampire always returned to predator.

After Barnabas, the vampire could question his own nature and battle against it (Louis in "Interview with the Vampire"). He could go from preying on humans to being their defender (Angel). He could be conflicted (Bill Compton in "True Blood"). He or she could be an action hero (the title character of "Blade" and Selene in the "Underworld" films).

And that wasn't because of the producers and writers on "Dark Shadows," a serial heading for cancellation before Frid showed up eight months into its daytime run. It was because of how Frid chose to play the character.

Frid knew precisely how long he'd be on the show. He'd been given a 90-day contract. He also knew how it all would end -- with a wooden stake sticking out of his chest.

What the writers didn't expect was that Frid would approach the character as a real person with real emotions. He didn't know how to play a monster. He had to find the actor's way into the part.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Frid several times over the last 25 years. The last time was for a Plain Dealer story about the 45th anniversary of "Dark Shadows." He recalled the first discussions about Barnabas.

"I remember being invited to a meeting on the Saturday at the studio to talk over the character," said Frid, who was living in his native Canada. "Asked for my opinion, I said to make him human -- remember he's real, and every monster is a human, of sorts. The behavior is something else. But it all began to develop over a couple of weeks."

The show didn't follow that direction -- at first. But Frid knew it was best to approach an unrealistic role in a realistic manner.

"I know I had a good approach to the character," he told me during my first interview with the vampire in the 1980s. "I tried to make him a perfectly sensible person. I never played a vampire. I played him as a man with a hell of a conflict. But I never could perfect what I wanted to do, and that stiffness just fed Barnabas because he was so uptight."

Chained in his coffin in the 1790s, Barnabas was set free by drifter Willie Loomis (John Karlen). He showed up at the family mansion, Collinwood, introducing himself as a cousin from England. Once Barnabas got out of the coffin, Frid started thinking outside the box.

"Everything for vampires was in the dark, literally, before Jonathan," said Jim Pierson, director of the annual "Dark Shadows" festivals and creative consultant on the upcoming big-screen version starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas. "The essence of Jonathan Frid was this guy who wanted to act. He didn't want to play a singular note. He just did his own thing and his character came across as sympathetic."

Frid played the character's unease with a new century. Viewers responded, and, soon, the vampire was getting more fan mail than anyone else on the show. Series creator Dan Curtis couldn't kill off his most popular character, so the writers followed Frid's lead. They turned Barnabas into "the reluctant vampire" -- "the vampire as Hamlet."

Barnabas went from being a monstrous figure to being a vampire tortured by a conscience. From there, he set out to reclaim his soul. From there, he became the show's hero.

"I was very negative about my own performance," Frid said. "But then I began to realize, there's hope here. It just developed . . . began to develop very soon and then continuing."

The country also followed his lead, turning "Dark Shadows" into a pop-culture phenomenon embraced not just by traditional soap opera viewers but by teens, preteens, college students and horror fans. There was a "Dark Shadows" merchandising boom that included trading cards, comic books, board games, novels, joke books, Viewmaster reels, record albums, trading cards and fashion accessories. There was a big-screen movie, "House of Dark Shadows" (1970), starring Frid and Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played waitress-turned-governess Maggie Evans.

"Nobody can deny that he gave the vampire a human side on a mainstream delivery system," Pierson said Thursday during a telephone interview. "It's difficult to fathom how popular 'Dark Shadows' was when it was reaching 20 million people in 1969. But Jonathan didn't care about the fame or the fangs. He just wanted to be a working actor, and Barnabas became his own Hamlet, with fangs."

When "Dark Shadows" left the air in 1971, Frid tried to distance himself from the Barnabas association. By the 1980s, he had made peace with this strong identification, as well as with the notorious mistakes that ran through the five years of "Dark Shadows" episodes.

"I've often said the show had its beautiful moments," Frid said. "It could be magical, but most of the time we reached for the stars and fell flat on our faces. The one thing I'd tell fans is not to be obsessed with the characters. Knock it off when the show is over."

Yet Frid gave full credit those fans for keeping "Dark Shadows" alive.

"It is totally the fans, no question," Frid said of the occult show's cult following. "It was the fans from the very beginning. Acting is a shared experience between the actor and the audience. Each brings something, and when the audience participates, catches on, something happens. The actor relies on the audience."

Frid was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, on Dec. 2, 1924. After serving in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II, he earned a master of fine arts degree in directing from the Yale School of Drama.

He was primarily a stage actor before and after "Dark Shadows." He reportedly died of natural causes at Juravinski Hospital in Hamilton on April 13.

"It's more emotional than I can explain," his friend and co-star Kathryn Leigh Scott said Thursday during a telephone interview. "He died 45 years to the day he first appeared on the 'Dark Shadows' set. We all met him on April 13, 1967. And just a few days later, we played my favorite scene from the entire series: when Barnabas meets Maggie."

Frid, Scott and two of their fellow "Dark Shadows'' stars -- Lara Parker and David Selby -- recently filmed a cameo appearance for the big-screen remake of "Dark Shadows" starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton. It opens on Friday, May 11.

"Jonathan was very unpretentious, unassuming and totally down to earth," said Scott, the author and publisher of several books on "Dark Shadows," including, with Pierson, the just-published "Return to Collinwood." "And yet, on camera, he had this mesmerizing charisma. He brought so much dimension to that role -- that iconic role that is his legacy.

"Sometimes one gets associated with a role, and you lament that, but then you embrace it and appreciate it and realize you've created something that is enduring and has given pleasure to millions of people. And Jonathan did embrace it. He really was the heart and the soul of 'Dark Shadows.' "

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